‘Let’s Dance’: Why David Bowie struggled to grow from his greatest hit
There are few songs quite as massive as ‘Let’s Dance’. Released in the spring of 1983, the track was first concocted by David Bowie and Nile Rodgers in Switzerland, where they would fuse the former’s talent for art rock songwriting with the latter’s funk and dance leanings. The result was a song that would encourage audiences to get up on their feet for decades to come, a song that found favour with new wave fans and disco dancers alike, but it was also a song that Bowie would come to regret.
Before he teamed up with the Chic guitarist for ‘Let’s Dance’, Bowie had rarely strayed from his art rock comfort zone. He was a sonic innovator, of course, pushing new wave and guitar music forward with strange personas and glamorous, ambitious efforts like ‘Life on Mars?’ and ‘Heroes’, but he was yet to venture as far as dance music.
In fact, the ‘Starman’ initially intended for ‘Let’s Dance’ to exist well within his comfort zone. Bowie penned the track in his own style, with an acoustic guitar and the intention of writing a folk tune. The introduction of Rodgers to the studio turned the song into something else entirely, into a hit that could fill out a dancefloor in seconds.
Screeching saxophones and a gentle groove won Bowie the approval of Rodgers, as well as the backing of audiences across the globe. ‘Let’s Dance’ was a huge commercial success, and it remains one of his most well-loved songs even now, over four decades on. So why did the singer grow to dislike it?
Bowie shared his complicated feelings towards ‘Let’s Dance’ during a conversation with Interview magazine, explaining how it marked a change in the way the world saw him as an artist. “I tried passionately hard in the first part of the ‘80s to fit in,” he remembered, “and I had my first overground success. I was suddenly no longer ‘the world’s biggest cult artist’ in popular music.”
In his own words, the song allowed him to go “mainstream in a major way,” but it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Bowie began to struggle with his own understanding of his artistry and with the opinions that others had formed as a result of ‘Let’s Dance’. He suggested that his next few records “pandered” to the song’s success.
Bowie followed up on the success of ‘Let’s Dance’ with the album of the same name, featuring tracks like ‘Modern Love’ which saw him leaning further into those stylings. This sound continued into Tonight a year later. Though there were some great songs coming out of this new, radio-friendly style, Bowie felt that he had limited his own creativity.
“It was very hard for people to see me as anything other than the person in the suit who did ‘Let’s Dance’,” he explained, “and it was driving me mad because it took all my passion for experimenting away.” While it’s certainly not a bad legacy to be remembered as the person who did ‘Let’s Dance’, it wasn’t enough for Bowie. He was a sonic experimenter before the smash hit, and he endeavoured to remain one after.
Eventually, Bowie fell back into more rock-adjacent styles and even ventured into electronic realms, rediscovering his passion for experimentation. Despite his conflicted feelings towards the track and its impact on his artistry, ‘Let’s Dance’ still remains an absolute classic.
